If you've been living under a rock for the past week, you probably have not
heard about Telus' plan to increase provincial wide residential coverage pricing by 10%.
Well it's true; less than a year since Telus raised their rates a substantial amount,
they go ahead and raise them up again... fuckers. In this paper, I am pleading with current
Telus residential customers to boycott Telus Communications. Telus is a multi-billion dollar
corporation who has a monopoly over not only the residential and corporate phone lines and
high-speed Internet ('ADSL') as well. Telus took over BCTEL two years ago, has 25% ownership
over Sasktel, completely owns Quebectel, has 25% stock in Verizon, and rumour has it they helped
Nortel Networks (formerly 'Northern Telecom') out of their slump by buying a quantity of their company.
Holy corporate control, batman!

Why Boycott Telus?

A couple weeks ago while I was enjoying my taxi ride home from the Money Mart after pay day, I was lucky
enough to toon into a local radio station (630 CHED) here in Edmonton where they had an interview
with the city marketing director for Telus Communications. The Telus employee's defense the proposal
for the 10% residential increase was this: "We at Telus want to allow [more] competition into the
residential market place. By raising the rates, telecom companies who thought that getting into the
local Alberta market was unprofitable, will now think otherwise. If the proposal goes through, regular
local residential phone lines will cost, at the most, $35.00 a month." This just does not make any sense!
Wouldn't raising rates to allow competition be a BAD thing on the part of Telus? If local residential
competition is allowed in Alberta, then Telus will lose revenue rather quickly. My theory is that the
Telus employee that was on 630 CHED was full of shit when telling us that raising rates would invite local
competition. Telus is a very large corporation who's revenues are more important to them than say, quality of
service (QOS) for Albertans - raising rates will not allow local competition. Telus leases it's own lines to
local competition in the payphone market at a high cost, and will probably do the same for residential lines.
And speaking of residential lines, has anyone even seen any other companies in Alberta offering local residential
service to Albertans? Not I. The only other common carrier I've seen around is AT&T, and they offer business lines.

The Alternative

The best suited alternative for anyone wanting quality lines at a decent rate, if Telus decides to hike its local rates
to $35.00 for a regular line is - AT&T Business. AT&T right now offers its business accounts for $27.95 per month, and includes
a monthly centrex line, line hunting, call display, call waiting, call conference / transfer and call forwarding. Telus' business
line right now is currently $34.18... what a rip off.

Conclusion

My conclusion: Telus' service, which was once a flaming pile of dog shit, is now turning into a flaming pile of horse shit.
Go with the alternative, AT&T, if you can... or better yet, get a pre-paid phone from Rogers AT&T or FIDO.
ENDZ.